First thing this morning I put up my 2011 calendar.
What cuties greeted me...my sweet grandsons!!
Then after breakfast, I began packing up some Christmas decorations and bringing out my January decor, which consists of snowmen. Even though I live in an area that doesn't see much snow, I love snow. You probably caught on to that when I posted my snowman tree here. First I changed my door hanging. I have a hanging for each month of the year. I saw this cute snowman on the front of a quilting magazine as I walked down the craft aisle in Wal-Mart. Yep, this was what I wanted for January.
Then I moved on to my cross stitch wall hanging. I also have a hanging for each month. The series is called "Four Letter Words". Every time we hear the words "four letter word" we think of bad words, but that's not the case here! These are GOOD four letter words! For instance January's word is SNOW. Each month I bought a kit with the chart, cross stitch fabric and buttons. Some stitchers framed theirs, but I decided to make small pillows. I enjoyed looking for just the right fabric for the pillow. As I was making these little pillows I searched for the best way to display them. One day while looking in a magazine, I saw a small pillow hanging from a wall sconce. Bingo!! Found my sconce and small candles at Pier One, on sale no less!
The pillow has six little buttons on it: the snowman's nose, star, heart, bird, flower, knit cap, and a snowflake.
The kits came out once a month so, as I stitched the current month I would try to guess what the next four letter word would be. You can probably guess February's word.
I keep my snowmen decorations from Christmas up through January. Not the tree, just the ones sitting around like these on my hutch. There's a lot of red and green, but I don't think they look too Christmasy.
The snowmen in the photo below are on my counter in the kitchen. The snowman on the left side with the wide red scarf is a candle that my son made in art class. I think he was in Junior High. They made them in class and then sold them for a fund raiser. Of course, I had to but Randy's!!
I collect Boyds' snow globes. I think it's because I don't get to see real snow very often. I have 32 of them, mostly bought by my wonderful husband. He loves to shower me with whatever I like to collect. I think it makes the gift buying easier for him and they make me happy. I placed a couple of winter ones around, played the music box, and watched the snow fall!
And one last snow thing, every year I read Christmas novellas during the season. I finished my last book this morning. Guess the title...The Snowflake. It was a good little romantic story.
Here's a snowflake poem the author included in the book.
They say that every snowflake is different.
If that were true, how could the world go on?
How could we ever get up off our knees?
How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?
Jeanette Winterson
(Doesn't she have the most perfect last name for this poem?)
(Doesn't she have the most perfect last name for this poem?)
The author of the book was very thought provoking at the end. Here's her thoughts copied from her book.
"Have you ever considered the snowflake? I have. I have a fascination with them. They say snowflakes are one of a kind, like fingerprints. Can you imagine how many snowflakes are in a handful of snow? A yard full? A city’s worth? And that’s just in one snowfall. What about a winter’s worth of snowflakes across the entire world? What about every snowflake that has or will ever fall? Can you imagine the diversity of intricate design? The perfectly symmetrical arms that appear like sparkling glass under a microscope? The bends and twists, the nubs and branches on a piece of floating, fluffy frozen water? Only God has that much imagination, that much creativity, that much timeless knowledge and wisdom. Only God could build a snowflake with each one having it’s own identity.
We are like the snowflake, fantastic and unfathomable and fragile. Our lives are a moment in time, but that moment is all ours. No one like you was ever made or ever to be made. If God took the effort to make each snowflake with its own unique shape, how much more did He expend on you. His beloved, in His image?
We forget, I think, how valuable we are to Him. When the snowflake melts, what does it become? Streams and rivers, lakes and oceans. life-giving water. God created one-of-a-kind water droplets for you to drink. I can’t fathom such love."
Jamie Carie
If you're interested in snowflakes, you should check out these pictures of actual snowflakes. Pretty amazing.
I agree with this sweet little bear.
Let is snow, let it snow, let it snow!
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